In the Dawning Hours
by Sugar Magic
Summary: Waking up is easy if you never have to sleep.


In the Dawning Hours

"What do you do all night?" Hanna asks one morning, mouth stuffed with eggs. He says it casually but you can tell he's dying to know. You still fascinate him, even after three months, and it's really shocking he hasn't asked sooner.

"I walk around the city," you say, and at the same moment you notice that your skin is almost the same color as the green bargain dish soap that Hanna recently bought. You wonder if the two are connected. If they are, it really wouldn't surprise you. You return to scrubbing the pan in the rather dirty sink.

"That's it? You walk for, like, eight hours?" You hum an assent to him. "Don't you get tired?"

At this you turn to smile at him. "I don't get tired, Hanna."

"Oh! Right, right." Hanna shovels another forkful of eggs into his mouths and munches. He looks like he's in deep though. You smile again. Only Hanna could look serious while egg is threatening to dribble down chin. "Have you ever tried?" he asks.

"Tried what?"

"To sleep. I mean I've read that you don't /have/ to, but do you think you could?" Hanna starts on the orange you peeled for him.

"No." He looks heartbroken and you don't know why. "But I could try," you add, deciding to humor him. You hate it when he pouts.

Night comes too quickly, and before you realize what is happening Hanna is shuffling into his pajamas, which consists of a floppy t-shirt and a pair of boxers. He turns to you, stretches, and rubs a hand up and down his upper arm.

"Is this… weird for you?" he asks. "Because you don't have to, I won't be offended or anything." Hanna smiles sheepishly, looking up at you behind long eyelashes.

"No," you say, and you both leave it at that. It's half a lie, because it is a little weird. You're very used to wandering the streets at night, past junkies and drunks and midnight insects. Tonight, you stay. You're slightly nervous for the change.

"Okay, well, uh. Climb in whenever you're ready. We only have one bed so…" Hanna looks at you. "Yeah."

He removes his glasses with one to set them on the bedside table and rolls away from you, and you watch him for a moment before lifting the blankets. You don't know why Hanna wants this but your body shivers with suspicion and something like a worn-out kind of hope.

Hanna falls asleep very quickly, and everything is so quite you can almost hear his heartbeat under his rhythmic breaths. It's nothing like being out in the night, and you think you like this better. You lay on your back and stare up for awhile, then grab for a book on the nightstand. Your glowing eyes provide all the light you need, and you read about Scout Finch beginning to hate school before you become restless. The back of your neck is tingling, and beside you Hanna breaths. In his sleep, he rolls onto his back and snores.

You don't generate heat anymore, but you can feel it radiating off of Hanna from how close he is. You roll to face him, and the curve of his neck and his wet open mouth exude only innocence. And still your entire soul warms, and a thousand tiny moments fire one after another through your brain. Seeking Hanna out was about making new memories and you have, hundreds of them, and somehow Hanna has become more precious to you than anything you can ever imagine wanting or having wanted in what seems like a few beatings of a living heart.

Sunlight has begun to seep into the room. The day is coming on. You must have been here for hours, staring at him in silence with the glow of your eyes bathing his skin in orange, but time seems to pass quickly when you're dead at night. You want to see his face now, because it constantly in the waking hours doesn't feel like enough right now. You lift yourself up to all fours. The mattress dips as you vault up and over. The blanket falls away as you kneel over him, with a folded leg on either side of his thighs. Nothing changes as you cup is face and simply look at him. Hanna is a heavy sleeper, after all.

Hanna has a midnight erection tenting his plaid boxers, and you resist the urge to touch. That would be even more wrong than clamoring on top of him in the first place. You satisfy yourself with watching his stillness, tracing his body with your eyes, and you feel a little sick and eager for something that isn't happening, until the body under you begins to shift. Then your mind is carved out and emptied. Your hands fall from face.

The red glow of the clock says five AM, far too early for Hanna to be awake, but his eyes are open and looking at you straddling his thighs. "I'm sorry I woke you," you whisper, because the moment doesn't seem like it could survive normal vocalization. Hanna hums and rubs at his eyes, not really awake. He moves without you noticing, until you feel a warm hand on your legs.

He rubs up and down slowly, like it's a typical action for the two of you, and you wish, for a moment, for the ability to breath, for the capacity to expel some of the tension winding tightly in your lungs and chest. Hanna hums again, and your dead heart still manages to clench somehow.

He lifts his hips and pushes his shoulders into the pillow, and it's like moving through water: slow and rippling. He yawns - covering his mouth with the back of his hand – and smiles sleepily, /smiles/ in a way that feels so intimate and innocent and precious that your eyes lid and you dip your head to press your foreheads together. He kisses you first, lazily, soft lips under yours, gently caressing. It's closed-mouthed until you change it, roll your tongue against his bottom lip, and then he moans and slides his mouth against yours in a perfect way that makes it feel like this is how things are supposed to be. You consider panicking, because this might be too far, but Hanna moans and you open your eyes to see only his eyelashes and pink cheeks. This feels like the natural conclusion to the last three months, and suddenly you're /sure/.

Hanna fumbles for his glasses, but gives up, sighing and arching into your hand as you touch his cock for the first time. There's barely any contact; you're cupping it lightly through cloth, not wrapped around or pumping, and you're not sure you remember how to do this at all. But you know at least that you want skin on skin, and you unbutton the fly of his boxers and pull his cock out.

When you finally wrap your hand around it, the action is on a half instinct, something forgotten consciously but recalled by your body, and it's hard to imagine that you've ever done this with anyone but Hanna, but you must have at some point. Hanna gasps, pink mouth wide, and you kiss him again when he starts to pant to the rhythm of your hand dragging across his cock.

His short fingernails dig into your knees, leaving half-moon marks that will never fade away. Your body doesn't repair itself, but the tiny crescents in your flesh are a mark you don't want to lose anyway. Hanna is crying out softly now, voice taking a higher pitch. His ankles are digging into the mattress. A bubble of pre-come is beading at the tip of his cock. He's beautiful, so beautiful, and your hand speeds up.

You don't take your mouth off of him. You only migrate; trailing to his neck, hitching up his shirt to his shoulders, running your lips down his chest. A hand winds into your hair and tugs sporadically, and the half-second you have to worry about losing your scalp is completely forgotten when Hanna's entire body tenses and shudders. He bites into his bottom lip and digs his teeth in tight. You stoke him a few more times, and then he's coming, hot gouts of pearly liquid erupting across your wrist, and what misses your hand splatters onto his stomach.

Hanna's gasping breathes accumulate to one final sigh. He yawns deeply and gropes blindly for your hand. He squeezes, once, and then falls completely limp, passed out from the throes of orgasm. You smile at him, chest abuzz with a hot affection. You've smiled a lot lately.

Disentangling your fingers from his, you get up to retrieve a rag to clean up yet another of Hanna's messes, but one of a different sort. You run it under warm water, and return to his side. Hanna doesn't wake up as you drag the rag across his skin, wiping away his semen gently. Hanna sleeps, and you return to the covers with him. You toss the rag to the floor behind you, because it really isn't important right now. He makes a snorting sound in his sleep, awkward and endearing like everything else about him. With green, decaying fingers, you trace the morning sunlight that spill across his chest.

Somewhere, the world that exists outside the two of you dawns.


End file.
